


you held your course to some distant war in the corners of your mind

by elsaclack



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time Parents, Fluff, amy trying to comfort him, and it's a thing, anyways thanks bye, for to read, i guess, idk what the heck this is but.......it's here, if you're into that, jake being anxious, new baby fic, of course you're into that you're on ao3, please don't @ me, rae being an infant and not having any concept of what her parents are even talking about, two baby fics in a row yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: The vast majority of his view through the rear view mirror is blocked by Amy’s head, raised a bit higher than usual thanks in large part to the hump that makes up the middle seat. He’s certain that’s going to present a problem once they’re on the road and moving, but he’s rather grateful for her presence in his line of vision at the moment. She’s not looking at him, but rather, at the tiny human bundled up like a baby burrito in the car seat to her left. She’s got a big goofy grin on her face and her brows keep rising and falling with each changing expression. A smile - probably the billionth in the last two days - blossoms across his face as he watches her make silly faces at their literally-hours-old daughter.Brand new car, brander newer daughter.





	you held your course to some distant war in the corners of your mind

In a parking garage on the northeastern edge of Brooklyn, Jake Peralta slides into the driver’s seat of his brand new car. The seats are made of leather and he’s pretty sure someone stitched the steering wheel together by hand, and it has at least three times the number of airbags his old Mustang once boasted. It’s got the highest safety rating and the best reviews; Amy said the only thing safer is a fully-fledged tank.

And yet, he is absolutely petrified at the mere thought of starting the engine.

Now, the airbags and the automatic emergency brakes and the lane monitoring are all great and well and good, but the fact of the matter is that none of these safety features are guarantees. Airbags fail. Technology goes haywire. New York drivers race through the roads like they’ve got nothing in the world to lose, like they’ve never even heard of the concept of a speed limit, like they’ve got absolutely no regard for the real full complex human lives in progress around them.

They drive like nothing in the world matters to them and his entire world, his very heart and soul, is currently buckled into a car seat directly behind where he’s sitting.

The vast majority of his view through the rear view mirror is blocked by Amy’s head, raised a bit higher than usual thanks in large part to the hump that makes up the middle seat. He’s certain that’s going to present a problem once they’re on the road and moving, but he’s rather grateful for her presence in his line of vision at the moment. She’s not looking at him, but rather, at the tiny human bundled up like a baby burrito in the car seat to her left. She’s got a big goofy grin on her face and her brows keep rising and falling with each changing expression. A smile - probably the billionth in the last two days - blossoms across his face as he watches her make silly faces at their literally-hours-old daughter.

Brand new car, brander newer daughter.

(“That’s not grammatically correct, babe,” Amy had tiredly murmured some 36 hours earlier. He’d grinned distractedly up at her - laid out in the hospital bed, head lolled to the side to watch him - before returning his gaze to the tiny warm bundle in his arms.)

Yeah, so, he’s a dad now, but he’s also a cop, which means the whole protective-and-nervous-parent-of-an-infant thing is colliding with this knowledge-of-how-truly-horrifying-New-York-can-be thing, and he’s pretty sure they’re never going to leave this parking garage, ever.

He doesn’t even realize he’s still staring at Amy until her eyes suddenly meet his through the mirror, and in a split-second her expression shifts from in love and amused to concerned and confused. “You look like you just saw a ghost,” she says.

He manages to muster up some thin and pitiful excuse of a laugh, before tightening his grip around the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.

“What’s going on?”

His next inhale is loud in his ears, and once his lungs are full to capacity he releases it all in one long shaky breath. “I don’t think I can drive.” he says into the silence of the car.

Amy furrows her brow, glancing down once at Rae before meeting his gaze again. “What, because of your hand?”

“Huh? Oh -” he flexes his bandaged right hand and feels a dull soreness throbbing there - Amy’s got a  _hell_ of a grip. Though she didn’t actually break his hand, she did managed to bruise the bones there while in labor. “No, I don’t even feel that anymore. I’m just,” he stops and shakes his head a little, trying to tamp down the word tornado tearing through his mind right now into a coherent line of thought. “What if the car explodes?”

She seems, if at all possible, even more confused than before. His question hangs between them for a beat or two before she glances once again at Rae, and then at him again. “I understand the question, but I don’t understand.” she finally says.

“What if, like, when I go to turn the keys in the ignition, the engine explodes? Or when I put it in reverse, or when I step on the gas? What if the car explodes, Amy?”

“The car isn’t gonna explode,” she says slowly. “This isn’t  _Die Hard_ , babe. No one’s trying to kill us.”

He thinks of Maliardi and Figgis and Hawkins and Murphy and the dozen or so other hardened gang leaders, mafia kingpins, and murderers that he and her are both responsible for arresting, and loudly scoffs.

“Okay, no one’s trying to kill us  _right now_.” she says with a roll of her eyes. “We’re just two people trying to take our daughter home for the first time. This is just our car. When you put the key in the ignition, the only thing that’s gonna happen is the engine starting. I promise.”

Jake stares at her hard through the mirror for another four seconds before heaving a sigh and easing the key into the ignition. Breath held, eyes screwed shut, he twists the key.

And the engine roars to life beneath their feet.

Another moment or two passes in relative silence, before he meets her gaze in the mirror. She’s got that familiar expression that lands somewhere between affection and exasperation softening the features of her face, and his heart throbs with an unexpected wave of adoration at the sight. “You good up there, McClane?”

“What if someone tries to carjack us on the way home?”

Rae makes a noise then, one he’s fairly certain is of discontent, and Amy immediately shifts all of her attention down and to her right. “Jake, c’mon,” she says, a little more urgently than before. “I want her out of this car seat as quickly as possible. Let’s go.”

Dread rises up to impossible heights inside his gut and he nearly chokes on it, knuckles white on the steering wheel once again. “I can’t do this,” he whispers.

From his peripheral, he sees Amy’s head snap up. “Hey -”

“No, I’m serious, I don’t think I can do this. I mean,” he turns his head away from the mirror, out toward his window, toward the still and silent parking garage around them. “That’s - she’s our daughter, Ames. She’s a whole real person, and I can’t - I mean, I couldn’t, I couldn’t protect myself or you from all of the  _shit_ \- sorry - the, the  _stuff_ that’s happened over the last few years and, and what if something happens to her? What if something happens and I have to leave again? What if I end up having to leave you again? She’s gonna think I abandoned her, just like my dad did to me, and I hate my dad, Ames, what if she  _hates_ me -”

A warm and steady hand closes over his bicep, and the words suddenly cut off right there in his throat. He’s breathing hard but so is Amy, he can feel it along the top of his shoulder, but he can’t bring himself to look anywhere other than his fists clenched in his lap. Her voice from years previously suddenly echoes back to him in the silence -  _you’d probably be late to your own funeral_  - and he very nearly laughs. He would have his what-if-I’m-not-good-enough-to-be-a-parent freak-out after he’s already a parent.

“Jake.” her voice is gentle and soft but there’s a strong undercurrent to it, one that rumbles with all the force of an impending storm. When he forces himself to look up into the mirror he finds her gaze blazing and intense, and his heart skips a beat. “She’s not gonna hate you. She is  _never_ gonna hate you. That’s not even close to being in the realm of possibility, okay? Rachel already loves you and she doesn’t even know what love  _is_ yet.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because I’m the one that felt her going full Cirque Du Soleil in my belly every time she heard your voice.” An involuntary smile spreads across his face, memories of tiny feet bulging against his palm through Amy’s belly just a few short weeks ago suddenly filling his mind. “Rae loves you so much and she’s only gonna love you more as she starts getting older. And...and if, god forbid, something else happens down the line and you have to - to leave,” she very nearly croaks the last part and his heart fissures, pain erupting like wildfire through is chest. He’s left her so many times,  _so many times_ , it’s just not fair. And yet her thumb is steady and soothing where it’s begun to rub against his arm through his hoodie sleeve, and her gaze is still just as steady and intense as it was when he first looked up, and already the pain is diminishing again. “I know that it won’t be your choice. And she will, too. I won’t ever let her think otherwise. Jake,” she shifts forward all the way to the edge of her seat and he turns his head to meet her gaze head-on, lower lip caught between his teeth. “You are going to be an absolutely amazing dad. You already are. I know you’re nervous and scared, okay, I am too. But we’ve got each other, and we’ve always made a pretty good team. We can do this.”

Jake reaches around with his left hand to thread his fingers through her hair, bringing her forward another inch and craning his own neck to kiss her. Fear still flutters in his belly like a bird caught in a cave, but it’s not so impossible to handle anymore. She lingers when the kiss breaks, forehead brushing against his, and when his eyes flutter open she’s smiling softly at him. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and her smile grows brighter.

He waits until she’s settled back in her seat and making faces at Rae again before swallowing hard and reaching down for the gear shift. “Are you ready to see your first home, Rae?” Amy asks in the sing-song voice he already loves way more than he probably should.

“Second home,” he corrects, looking at her through the mirror. She shoots him a questioning look. “You were her first.”

There’s probably a line in there somewhere about how he’s found a home in her, too, and it’s probably deeply emotional and touching, but she’s snorting in laughter and shaking her head, and the exhaustion from their messed up sleeping schedule is starting to set in, and it’s just a short twenty-minute drive from this parking garage to their apartment. So he just shoots her a grin instead, before reaching for the gear shift and putting the car in reverse.

They make it all the way home.


End file.
